Rodalco, its raining hard as I write, but we all know now that its never going to be enough to avert the "Power Shortages". Our government has allowed a private company to sell more power to the Bluff smelter and then ration power to the rest of the country at increased prices.

This is no surprise given that the smelter is closest to the dam and its more profitable to sell power to it, than say, Auckland.

PM Rob Muldoons "Think Big" projects were never intended to be privatised. Now we are realising the downside of privatisation.

Do you have a sales tax (GST?) on electricity there? If so, you can bet that at least some will be suggesting that it be raised.......

We have GST on everything here and have had since 1986 (when it was 10%, it was increased to 12.5% in 1989, with the promise of lower income tax).Look, what the real issue is here, is the fact that with the introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991, anybody can object to having infrastructure of any kind near where they are living.This Act and the blinkered attitude of some landowners, (with a certain amount of NIMBY attitude thrown in) has pretty much hamstrung any attempts to build new generating capacity or even upgrade what we already have!.Dr David Bellamy was on the TV here the other night, jumping up and down about how bad wind farms and HV lines are.I defy anyone to tell me what a Botanist knows about power generation at any sort of level?.

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Let's face it, these days if you're not young, you're old - Red Green

So we can alleviate the cruel nasty power charges by basing a Generator (who knows what it runs on) in the South Island.How do you upload that to the 500kVDC link North?.I agree with Kiwi's past statements.{Cut the bloody Inter-Island cable}.We have enough energy here in the South Island.All you North Island idiots can argue amongst yourselves.Don't you folks forget, if it hadn't been for Maui catching that fish, there wouldn't be a North Island.{Maori Legend}I personally would have thrown it back into the water!.

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Let's face it, these days if you're not young, you're old - Red Green

A great big filthy belching smokestack is just what Ch Ch DOESN'T need right now. ( bit of a NIMBY there ).

A large project like that is a great boost to the local economy for sure, but can't we come up with something a little more practical.

Man I'm beginning to sound like a Greeny!

Rant: Privatisation has turned our national grid into a stockmarket in which modern-day pirates are free to extort and plunder. End of Rant.

Commercial law prevents tax-payers from obtaining full transparency from our privatised power providers and therefore the culture of bludgers prevails in the generation / transmission sectors. O.K. end of rant there.

The problem I have with so many of those who don't want wind farms and such like is that they'd be the first to complain when the power goes out in winter, and when asked if they're prepared to cut back on their ever-growing electrical demand they look horrified.

Paul uk:- I agree with you entirely. I met Dr David Bellamy and he was objecting to wind farms etc. But he wouldn't answer when I asked if he had thought about reducing his power consumption. It is an ongoing problem world wide, seems like everything you buy these days has a plug attached (i.e. power consumer).Dave